Ashen Winter

by Mike Mullin

  That couldn’t be true. Darla was alive. She had to be. “Let go!” I shouted. I threw a punch at him, but my right arm was weak. He caught it and wrapped me in a bear hug.

  “Don’t make me hit you again, son. Hurt my dang knuckles. You come into town, get patched up. If the mayor gives the say-so, I’ll take you back to the bridge and help you look for Darla.”

  We pulled through the gate and the guards strained to close it behind us. As it crashed shut, Earl released me. On the inside, the wall was just an enormous pile of packed snow. Steps had been carved into it here and there so defenders against a siege could easily reach the makeshift battlement at the top.

  The pickups rolled slowly through town. Nobody was outside, but that wasn’t surprising; it was too cold to be outdoors without a good reason. We pulled up at the low metal building that housed the library, city hall, and fire station—the same building where Darla and I had met the town’s librarian, Rita Mae, the year before. The fire truck that had been stuck outside was gone. Other than that and the deep snow, it looked about the same.

  “C’mon,” Earl said. It was an order, not a suggestion.

  I leaned against the roof of the cab, ignoring him. My mind whirled around the idea Earl had planted, that Darla was dead. I kept approaching the concept in my thoughts and then skittering away from it, like trying to catch a porcupine bare-handed.

  “Let’s go see the mayor,” Earl said.

  I didn’t respond.

  Earl’s hand pressed against my back between my shoulder blades. “Look, son. I’m sorry ’bout what I said to you, ’bout Darla being dead and all. I know it wasn’t Christian of me to put it that blunt. But lyin’ to you wouldn’t be doing you no kindness, neither.”

  I whirled and whipped my left hand toward his neck. I grabbed the collar of his coat and shook him so hard his head nodded involuntarily. “Darla is alive,” I growled.

  “Okay, okay. Let go of me.”

  I released my grip on his collar.

  Earl said, “If she’s alive—”

  “She is—”

  “Let me finish,” Earl said. “If she’s alive, how are you going to find her? You’ve got no pack, no food, no weapons—nothing. You leave the city walls like that, you’re going to die.”

  “So help me. Gather up some men, and let’s go get her.”

  “I can’t. Not without the mayor’s say-so. I can’t even let you stay inside the city walls unless she okays it. Things are tough. We’re not taking in refugees, much as some might want to.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Let’s go see your mayor.”

  “That’s all I was trying to do in the first place,” Earl grumbled.

  He led me through the middle door of the building labeled CITY HALL. My gut clenched with a fear as visceral as any I’d ever felt. I had to convince these people to help me. To find Darla. My Darla.

  Chapter 30

  Inside City Hall there was a reception room with a desk. One wall was completely covered in a mismatched patchwork of every imaginable type of bulletin board: cork, cloth, framed, unframed, tan, white, red, and black. A crowd of people pressed around the boards, reading the hundreds of handwritten notices posted on them.

  Earl led me deeper into the building past a row of office cubicles. One of them was occupied by an elderly woman doing some sort of paperwork. Three others contained people listening to radios through headsets. They had sheets of copy paper beside them, which they were filling with tiny, neatly handwritten notes.

  We stopped at a door at the back of the room of cubicles. Earl knocked once and, without waiting for an answer, opened the door to usher me through.

  We interrupted a discussion so heated it seemed likely to ignite. A tiny, elderly woman with a huge flare of crazed white hair stood with her back to us. She was gesturing forcefully at a much taller, regal-looking woman, her steel-and-salt hair tied up in a bun.

  “. . . have to supply more lamp oil, Kenda,” the shorter woman said.

  “We don’t have any to spare,” the taller woman said.

  “Then at least cut some more windows in the walls.”

  “I already told you, Rita Mae. All the window glass is allocated to build cold frames. You’ll just have to read your precious books outside.”

  “It’s not good for the—”

  Earl cleared his throat. “Excuse me.”

  Rita Mae spun and glared at Earl. Then her gaze skipped to me. I recognized her—she was the librarian who’d helped me and Darla last year. “You,” she said, leveling a finger at me. “I’ve met you. Alex, right?”

  “Yeah. Alex Halprin,” I said. “How’d you remember?”

  “I never forget a patron. Or their questions. You asked about rabbit diseases.”

  “I found him on the road,” Earl said, addressing Kenda. “Or he found us. Couple a’ bandit trucks took a potshot at us as we were getting set up to dig corn. We chased ’em, but they were trying to lure us into an ambush. He,” Earl nodded my direction, “saved us.”

  “Hmm,” Kenda said, “guess we owe him, then.”

  “Owe him a place in town, you ask me,” Earl replied. “Would’ve lost a lot of men without his warning.”

  “Why not?” Kenda frowned. Then her words turned bitter. “What’s one more soul to starve to death with the rest of us?”

  “I’m not staying,” I said. “I need help to rescue Darla.”

  “I was about to ask if she was with you,” Rita Mae said.

  “She was . . . she fell. Got shot, I mean, then fell on the roof of a truck.” I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood. Rita Mae looked away.

  “She fell on one of the bandits’ trucks,” Earl said. “If the bullet didn’t kill her, they probably have.”

  I turned to glare at Earl, fists balled. He held out his hands in a gesture meant to be placating and said, “I’m sorry to keep offending you, son. But it’s nothing but the unvarnished truth.”

  “Much as we’d all like to,” Kenda said, “we can’t spare anyone to go chasing after Darla.”

  “But—”

  “We’re having a hard enough time keeping everyone safe and fed without risking a rescue mission for a girl who might already be dead.”

  “Darla is not dead!” I let my voice get louder than I’d intended. But I was sick and tired of everyone assuming she was dead. They couldn’t know that. They were just guessing. She was alive. She had to be.

  Kenda stared at me—the turn of her mouth and droop of her eyes made her look tired. “I’m sorry.”

  I swayed, sidestepping to stay on my feet. “Maybe the mayor will have a different opinion. Can’t I at least ask him?”

  Kenda’s frown turned to a scowl and her eyes narrowed. “You just did.”

  “Oh, you’re . . . sorry. I mean, sorry Mrs. Mayor. Um, I mean Madame Mayor? Um—”

  “Just Kenda will be fine.”

  I jammed my hand into my pocket and ran my fingers over the broken necklace I’d stowed there. “Please help,” I whispered. “I know Darla’s alive. We can save her. Please?”

  “I’m sorry,” Kenda said, her own voice low. “We’re barely digging enough corn to fend off starvation. I need everyone we have to defend the town and the corn-digging expeditions. We can’t afford to risk anyone in a rescue attempt.”

  My legs felt weak. I fell, my butt thumping onto the hard floor. Something trickled along my cheeks.

  “You need anything else from me, Kenda?”

  “No, Earl, thank you.”

  “I’ll go see about putting another corn-digging expedition on the road, then.” Earl left the office.

  Kenda knelt and laid her hand on my arm. “I wish we could help. But it’s impossible. No matter how much you love her. I couldn’t send a rescue mission after my own daughter.”

  “I can pay,” I said through my tears. “Seventeen packets of kale seeds—3,400 good seeds. Grows even in cold greenhouses, and it cures scurvy.” I reached into my jacket pocket and
pulled out the pouch holding the seed envelopes.

  Kenda looked at Rita Mae. “Would that work? Is kale better than dandelion greens?”

  “Let me check.” Rita Mae left the office.

  “Dandelion greens?” I said.

  “Yes,” Kenda replied. “When the first cases of scurvy hit, we built greenhouses and planted every kind of seed we could lay our hands on. Nothing survived but weeds. So now we cultivate dandelions. They’re the only source of vitamin C we have.”

  “I didn’t even know you could eat those.”

  “Sure. They don’t taste bad. Bitter sometimes if you don’t pick the leaves young enough.”

  “Where do you grow them?”

  “Cold frames on the roof of the school.”

  “What’s a—”

  “A cold frame is sort of a really small greenhouse. We heat ours using power we’re generating with old windmills.”

  “And grow dandelions.”

  “Yes. But if kale has a higher vitamin C content than dandelion, those seeds could be a huge help.”

  Rita Mae walked back into the room, carrying a fat, well-used paperback: The Nutribase Nutrition Facts Desk Reference. She was flipping through it as she walked. “Kale . . . kale . . . here. Well, break my bindings—80.4 milligrams per cup. That’s, um . . .” she flipped through the book, “more than four times as much vitamin C as dandelion greens! Probably tastes better, too.”

  “So you’ll do it?” I said, holding out the pouch toward Kenda. “You’ll help me save Darla?”

  “I can’t. I wish I could. But we need your kale seeds, so I can give you a place in Worthington, a house if you want it, any supplies you need. I’d do more if I could. But we just can’t risk any of our people.”

  “What do I need with a house? Or a place in Worthington?” I hurled the pouch across the room. It thumped against the wall and fell intact to the floor. Not that I cared if it had burst and spread kale seeds everywhere. If the seeds couldn’t buy Darla’s return, then they were worthless to me.

  “Are you crazy?” Rita Mae grabbed the bundle of envelopes off the floor.

  “We need those seeds,” Kenda said.

  “I need help going after Darla.”

  “It’s impossible.”

  “Then sell me a snowmobile, guns, and supplies.”

  “We don’t have any working snowmobiles. And I can’t let you leave.”

  “You can’t let me—?”

  “What?” Rita Mae said. “We’re not letting most refugees stay, and you’re telling this young man he can’t leave?”

  “He’s just a boy!” Kenda said.

  “That doesn’t make it right to hold him against his will,” Rita Mae replied.

  “He’ll get killed wandering around out there on his own.”

  “That’s his choice to make.”

  “I’m going after Darla. Unless you throw me in jail, I’m leaving now.”

  “We don’t even have a jail,” Rita Mae said. “And you need supplies.”

  “And you need my kale seeds. Sell me one of those pickups. And some gas.”

  “We’ve only got two that work,” Kenda said. “We can’t spare one. Or any gas. We’re running out.”

  “You won’t help me go after Darla, don’t have any snowmobiles, won’t sell me a truck—why shouldn’t I take my kale seeds and leave?”

  Kenda started, “Because you’ll get killed out—”

  “Because we need them,” Rita Mae interrupted. “And you need supplies. Guns, ammo, food—”

  “I can’t just let him wander out—”

  “You can’t stop him.” Rita Mae turned to me. “Here’s what you need: a blanket requisition for personal items.”

  “I’m not giving him carte blanche to take anything!” Kenda yelled, exasperation plain in her voice.

  “It’s a fair deal,” Rita Mae said. “Just what supplies he can carry—plus ten gallons of lamp oil for my library.”

  Mayor Kenda shot Rita Mae a look sour enough to spoil milk.

  “I’ll need guns,” I said. “A rifle and a pistol, at least.”

  “A blanket requisition from the mayor will let you pick out whatever you need from the town’s stores.”

  “Fine,” I said, staring down the mayor until she broke the standoff, averting her eyes.

  “Fine,” Mayor Kenda said. “A blanket requisition for personal items in return for all your kale seeds.”

  “And the lamp oil for the library. In return for a thousand kale seeds. Five packets.” I didn’t need the lamp oil, but I figured insisting on it would piss off Mayor Kenda. And she deserved it for threatening to keep me from leaving. It was the least I could do to repay Rita Mae for her support.

  “Five packets? You offered seventeen packets not ten minutes ago.”

  “Sure, for mounting a rescue,” I said. “That deal’s still on the table.”

  “I can’t.” Kenda pulled at her ear.

  “Then you only get five packets.” I took the bundle from Rita Mae, counted out five envelopes, and held them out to Mayor Kenda. “Take it or leave it. Darla doesn’t have time for me to waste arguing.”

  Mayor Kenda took the packets. She scrawled something on a scrap of paper from her desk and signed it. When she held the paper toward me, Rita Mae grabbed it.

  “My lamp oil,” Rita Mae said. She handed the paper back to Kenda.

  Kenda wrote something else on the paper and thrust it at Rita Mae. “Satisfied?”

  “Yep. I’ll see that he gets everything he wants.” Rita Mae ushered me out of the office. As we left, she gestured at the bloody cloth tied around my right arm. “Should check on your wound.”

  “I guess. Earl said it needed stitches.”

  “We’d best visit the fire station, then. Paramedic there, Floyd, has a better hand for stitching up flesh than I do.”

  Floyd did prove to have a deft hand with his needle. He worked fast, too, which was a blessing—getting stitched up without anesthetic isn’t much fun. The needle itself wasn’t all that bad, but the pressure it put on the gouge in my flesh sent flashes of pain up and down my arm and even into my teeth.

  While Floyd worked on my arm, I tried to distract myself by thinking about the supplies I’d need. Skis, guns, a tent, a pack—the list seemed endless. “Can you write a supply list for me?” I asked Rita Mae.

  “Paper’s dear. Just tell me; we’ll remember it.”

  “Okay. Ow!”

  “Sorry,” Floyd said, “almost done. Maybe just two more stitches will do it.”

  Rita Mae and I talked through the supply list while Floyd finished up. He got the wound closed with just four stitches—one for the entrance wound at the back of my arm and three for the exit wound at the front.

  Then Rita Mae led me around the town—starting from the fire station, we went back to City Hall and then to the small downtown business district. The piece of paper signed by Mayor Kenda magically produced whatever we asked for. At our last stop, St. Paul’s School, we picked up two five-gallon gasoline cans full of lamp oil. Mrs. Nance, the principal, was none too happy about giving it up. We were taking more than half her supply. But when she complained, Rita Mae shook the paper with the mayor’s signature under her nose. By the time we finished our tour of Worthington, I was equipped better than Darla and I had been when we left Warren on Bikezilla.

  I had a big, internal frame Kelty backpack; set of Saloman XADV backcountry skis; boots and poles; a Big Agnes tent; an REI down sleeping bag; a plastic tarp; a coil of nylon rope; a working butane lighter (an amazing luxury compared to a flint and steel or the fire-by-friction set); three candles; a set of aluminum pans; a small first-aid kit; a needle and thread; enough cornmeal, dried meat, and dandelion greens to last for weeks; two changes of insulated winter clothes; a Bushmaster .308 hunting rifle similar to Uncle Paul’s; a Browning Hi-Power pistol I had no idea how to use; and a box of extra ammo for each of the guns. The weight of the backpack on my hips and shoulders amazed me. A han
dful of minuscule seeds had turned into this? It wasn’t too different from before the volcano, when wealth could be carried on a tiny plastic card. But the best part about the supplies—the only part that mattered—maybe they’d give me the chance to reach Darla.

  Chapter 31

  As we trudged away from the school, I heard a burst of far-off gunfire. I dropped both cans of oil, ducked, and swiveled. All I could see was the back side of the town wall. I looked at Rita Mae; she hadn’t even flinched.

  “Who’s shooting?” I asked.

  “Blasted bandits taking potshots at someone,” Rita Mae replied. “Happens almost every day. They never hit anyone; they’re just reminding us they’re still out there, waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “Waiting for us to let down our guard, maybe. Waiting for a chance to get inside the city walls. Waiting to butcher us all, no doubt.”

  “And FEMA does nothing.” I heard another shot from closer by. Looking toward the wall, I pinpointed the source of the sound—a guy I hadn’t seen before on his belly atop the wall, returning fire with a rifle.

  “Worse than nothing. Jumped-up peacock that runs that camp in Maquoketa came up here and offered to protect us. All we had to do was abandon Worthington and move into his camp. Mayor Kenda said anyone who wanted to leave with him could. No one left.”

  Four guys carrying rifles ran past us on their way to the wall. “Should we do anything?” I asked.

  “I’m certainly not about to go climbing up the steps in that ice wall. Now if the bandits made it to the door of my library, that’d be a different matter. Then they’d have me and a 20-gauge deer slug to deal with. You do what you think best, son.”

  “You think the guys on the wall need help?”

  “Doesn’t sound like much of a firefight.”

  The shooting died down to an occasional pop. I picked up the gas cans and trudged along the road beside Rita Mae. The weight of the can tugged at the stitches in my right arm. I bit my lip and ignored the pain—the least I could do in return for Rita Mae’s help was carry the oil to the library.